This group of essays critically examine Horace Kallen's ideas and philosophy, and the extent of his influence. It describes how Kallen helped introduce Zionism in the United States, and how he became one of the first Americans involved in the founding of national civil rights and civil liberties organizations.

This article examines the rhetorical deployment of Darwinian natural selection by the Jewish social philosopher Horace M. Kallen, in what is now widely regarded as the first articulation of cultural pluralism, “Democracy versus the Melting-Pot”. My analysis proceeds in two steps. First, I identify specific strategies by means of which Kallen endeavored to insert his ideas more deeply into national discourse. I also trace reactions to his essay in the Jewish press, and argue that these indicate ongoing conversations concerning (...) Kallen's ideas, and they also reveal how he was reinterpreted for different reading audiences. Second, I argue that Kallen's strategy was to stress the survival value of cooperation rather than competition in natural selection, and he believed that this view supported both the natural biological inclinations of social groups and reflected American democratic values. Kallen's intervention serves as a striking example of how Darwinian natural selection was deployed to support Jewish participation in American life. (shrink)

FIRST MERTTENS LECTURE ON WAR AND PEACE JUSTICE AMONG NATIONS BY HORACE G. ALEXANDER, M. A. LECTURER ON INTERNATIONAL LAW AND POLITICS AT WOODBROOKE, SBLLY OAK, ...

Ethical mysticism, by S. Coit.--The ethical import of history, by D. S. Muzzey.--The tragic and heroic in life, by W. M. Salter.--Distinctive features of the ethical movement, by A. W. Martin.--Ethical experience as the basis of religious education, by H. Neumann.--"All men are created equal," by G. E. O'Dell.--How far is art an aid to religion? by P. Chubb.--Evolution and the uniqueness of man, by H. J. Bridges.--The spiritual outlook on life, by H. J. Golding.--The ethics of Abu'l Ala al (...) Ma'arri, by N. Schmidt.--Life's unused moral force, by H. Snell.--Is the ideal real? by G. A. Smith.--Some ethical tendencies in the professions, by R. D. Kohn.--On the art of living, by W. Boerner.--The relation of the ethical ideal to social reform, by J. L. Elliott.--Concerning tolerance, by R. F. Dewey.--Ethical culture in Germany after the war, by R. Penzig.--A confession of faith, by S. B. Weston.--"Hearing the witnesses," by J. Gutmann. (shrink)

Walter Savage Landor's exasperated marginal comment on line 13 of Horace, C. 1. 4 has sent modern commentators scurrying to the poem's defence. The skirmish has been won for Horace, but at the expense perhaps of magnifying the importance of line 13: A. Y. Campbell insisted that pallida mors, far from being irrelevant, was ‘the focus of the whole poem’.

Wishing to forestall an inquiry from Quinctius about the produce of his farm, Horace says that he will describe its forma et situs . What follows is not an impersonal description, but an account directed at Quinctius who is thought of as passing judgement on the farm . This involvement of Quinctius in the description must be extended to the protasis of the opening sentence of the description: continui montes si dissocientur opaca/valle…, temperiem laudes where the sense is something (...) like ‘if you were to find yourself in a place where the mountains, which crowd close to one another, are parted…, you would praise its temperate climate. (shrink)

In Satires 1.1 Horace asks the question why people are discontented and praise the fortunes of others, and he gives the answer that they are greedy. The precise connection between question and answer is however far from clear, and some commentators have felt that Horace has combined two separate themes of avarice and discontent without establishing a causal link between them. The great obstacle for critics who argue for thematic unity is to explain how it is that the (...) malcontents of 1–19 are motivated by greed, for Horace is not explicit but merely asserts baldly that it is so , and leaves the reader to work out the logic. The direct method is to identify to some degree praise of the fortunes of others with an envious desire to outstrip them in wealth. In support we may quote two of the most influential recent interpreters of the Satires, to whom all interested in the poems owe a great debt: ‘It is avaritia that is at the bottom of the misguided yearning after other men's lot. All those people would not be prepared to have a change; rather will they, out of greed, put up with any toil or danger.’. (shrink)